Contemporary classical music is flourishing, despite all media assertions to the contrary. We’d like to prove it by presenting several piano pieces written by five contemporary composers in the span of the last 25 years. We start with the rigorous American Nocturne I, from Pieces of Night, written by George Flynn in 1989 (it’s performed by the composer). The next, and very different, piece is Gary Noland’s playful Bead-Eyed Bellygods, from the 24 Postludes for piano, also played by the composer himself. Following that is Heinz Chur’s “new tonal” Sonata no. 6 (1984), played by Noriko Kitano. Next comes Leanna Primiani’s Variations for Piano Solo (2004), a pointillist theme followed by 19 variations and a coda (Yevgeniy Milyavskiy is playing the piece). We conclude with Joseph Hallman’s Untitled for piano (2003) (an unusual piece – Joe writes mostly instrumental music). It’s played by Cicilia Yuhda.
We hope you’ll appreciate the talent of the composers (each of whom deserves a separate profile), and the tremendous variety of the presented music as much as we did. To listen, click here.
July 13, 2009
Contemporary classical music is flourishing, despite all media assertions to the contrary. We’d like to prove it by presenting several piano pieces written by five contemporary composers in the span of the last 25 years. We start with the rigorous American Nocturne I, from Pieces of Night, written by George Flynn in 1989 (it’s performed by the composer). The next, and very different, piece is Gary Noland’s playful Bead-Eyed Bellygods, from the 24 Postludes for piano, also played by the composer himself. Following that is Heinz Chur’s “new tonal” Sonata no. 6 (1984), played by Noriko Kitano. Next comes Leanna Primiani’s Variations for Piano Solo (2004), a pointillist theme followed by 19 variations and a coda (Yevgeniy Milyavskiy is playing the piece). We conclude with Joseph Hallman’s Untitled for piano (2003) (an unusual piece – Joe writes mostly instrumental music). It’s played by Cicilia Yuhda.
We hope you’ll appreciate the talent of the composers (each of whom deserves a separate profile), and the tremendous variety of the presented music as much as we did. To listen, click here.